Chatter

HOLD THE PAMPERS
Don't expect Anne Heche to sign up for Lamaze classes with girlfriend Ellen DeGeneres anytime soon. Contrary to published reports, the actress says she isn't longing to bear their child. "That's such a lie!" says Heche, 28. "It's hilarious what people are making up about us. No, it's shocking. Some silly things that are written about us are painful. This supposed fact isn't painful, it's just wrong." In her next film, the political satire Wag the Dog, due this January, Heche says she plays "this George Stephanopoulos type" (are you reading this, George?) who plots with Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman to trump up a war. "The part was originally written for a 60-year-old man. [Director] Barry Levin-son came up with the idea of using me," says Heche. "But we didn't change a line after I signed up. Except one, where another character asks me how my husband is, instead of the original 'How's the wife?' "

BIG TICKET
Singing in front of President Clinton at the Democratic National Committee weekend fund-raiser Nov. 1 on Amelia Island, Fla., Art Garfunkel couldn't help but be impressed by the price of admission: $50,000 per couple. "I had to make sure my nails were clean," says Garfunkel, 56, "and stand up extra-straight." The singer, once teamed with Paul Simon, has learned to sympathize with Al Gore, who was also there. "The Vice President really has a tough job being Mr. Second," he says. "It's tough on the ego. You have to be very secure." Garfunkel, who was joined by his son James, 6, during his four-song set, knows that Mr. Second feeling himself. "James singing 'Feelin' Groovy' was the killer," he says. "I was upstaged by my own son."

BROWNIE POINTS
Except for that turn as a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar, Wesley Snipes usually plays only the manliest men of action. But Snipes, 35, who costars in the new drama One Night Stand as a happily married man enamored of Nastassja Kinski, is in touch with his feminine side. "Most people in my family are women," he says. "I grew up in a house with three women. My aunt had three daughters. My babysitter when I was young—she had three daughters." And Snipes has a secret. "I was in the Girl Scouts when I was 9 or 10," he says. "I was like a Girl Scout helper. I sold cookies like anybody else, so I could get to go on the field trip."

WORLDS APART
So how did teen star and erstwhile Juliet Claire Danes, late of TV's My So-Called Life, spend her summer vacation? "I toured with my boyfriend, Ben Lee, and his band [Noise Addict]," says Danes, 18, who costars in director Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker, due Nov. 21. "We stayed at a lot of cheap motels. I was afraid to get inside the bed some nights for fear of what creatures might be in there." Working with Coppola was a scarier proposition. "He's a genius, a legend. I was like, 'Am I worthy?' " she says. "But he's very warm and paternal. He has all these great old-world values. He holds open a door for a woman, and I love that." Still, Danes prefers the company of younger men. "I'm going to Yale next year," she says. "I can't wait to hang out with people my own age."